REVIEW: FINAL FANTASY VII’s Seventh Heaven Experience at Boba Bear (Koreatown, Los Angeles)

Hours: 11 AM to 11 PM
Current Closure Date: January 25, 2026
Reservations
Menu

Prices and menu are current as of November 22, 2025.

All photos are by the author.

Corner with lamp and flower. — *Just one small touch inside Seventh Heaven.*

FINAL FANTASY VII’s Seventh Heaven Experience at Boba Bear (which I am going to hereafter refer to as “Seventh Heaven” for the sake of brevity) is a pop-up experience in Koreatown, Los Angeles based on the Seventh Heaven restaurant in FINAL FANTASY VII Remake. It is tucked away in a small shopping center just about 10 minutes from where the Metro D Line train exits at Wilshire/Western. Alternatively, there is a very cheap valet service in the parking lot if you want to use that instead. You can make reservations ahead on Open Table for a $10 fee that is then applied to your overall restaurant bill, but they also accept walk-ins if there is room. Also: cosplay is welcome and ENCOURAGED. During my hour-long visit, I saw multiple parties come in in full FINAL FANTASY VII cosplay, and they all fit in with the atmosphere. There is no punch card or reward system to encourage multiple visits like you’d expect at a lot of pop-up cafes.

Chocobo stop outside the restaurant. — *Outside the restaurant is a Chocobo stop with a working, spinning, sign.*

Seventh Heaven’s décor is fantastic, and you can tell Boba Bear really worked hard to invoke a comforting, inviting atmosphere for anyone who is a fan of FINAL FANTASY VII, FINAL FANTASY VII Remake/Rebirth, and FINAL FANTASY VII: EVER CRISIS. Outside the restaurant, there is a photo op bench that replicates a chocobo stop- complete with a real moving chocobo sign. Overhead the restaurant is a Seventh Heaven sign, and there are moving images on the inside on either side of the door that show Midgar as if you’re looking out of the real Seventh Heaven restaurant. There is some scattered memorabilia around the restaurant, including an autographed restaurant apron, a life-size mockup of the pinball game, cardboard standees of the characters, cups sketched on and signed by the voice actors, and more.

The staff are also the absolute best part of the restaurant. They were so incredibly friendly and kept checking up on me to see if I needed anything, if I needed to look at any of the merchandise in detail, and they promptly gave me the bill when I requested it. I asked the staff to take my picture in the chocobo stop bench outside, and they were more than happy to do so. I wish all restaurant staff were as friendly and as kind as the ones at Seventh Heaven were!

There is also a variety of merchandise available for sale at Seventh Heaven. If you shopped at the SQUARE ENIX POP-UP SHOP in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo earlier this year, you’ve eaten/shopped at the SQUARE ENIX CAFÉ in Akihabara, or you have spent time on the SQUARE ENIX online store, then there is very little here unique to the pop-up restaurant itself besides the drinkware (which I will go into shortly) and the unique Seventh Heaven apron. While I was there, I saw the blind boxes were surprisingly popular with people, and those were incredibly well-stocked.

All of this is backed up by a variety of music all from FINAL FANTASY VII Remake by Nobuo Uematsu and SQUARE ENIX music that runs on a decently lengthy loop. You’ll hear everything from Smash ‘Em, Rip ‘Em and Wild de Chocobo to Aerith’s House, Johnny’s Theme, Flowers Blooming in the Church, and more. There is something really magical about hearing Tifa’s Theme- Seventh Heaven playing in the background while sipping on a FINAL FANTASY VII-themed drink.

This brings me to the food part of Seventh Heaven. The food leaves a lot to be desired. For $9, you can get a self-serve ramen bowl. You have a choice between a ramen base of spicy & hot (shin ramyun), roasted beef (master kang), chicken and mushroom (jml), hot chicken (buldak), spicy seafood (neoguri), and spicy carbonara (buldak). You then get to pick up to three toppings to add in: raw egg, ramen bae topping, spam, green onions, sweet corn, mozzarella, and jalapeño.

For my order, I picked the roasted beef with raw egg, ramen bae topping, and spam. The ramen came delivered to me in a dry puck with the ramen bae topping and the roast beef flavoring in dry seasoning packets. The egg came as a raw egg on the side, and the spam came in the bowl. The self-serve area is two hot water pour and cook stations set off in a corner of the restaurant. After the person in front of me burned hers because she did not stir it often enough while it cooked on a timer, the employee was kind enough to assist me more directly. After the hot water was added in and I kept stirring with my chopsticks to help break up the ramen and mix in the spam, I cracked the raw egg into it. The employee commented on how professional I looked cracking it! (If only she knew that I write a FINAL FANTASY XIV Online cooking column that has given me plenty of practice at it.)

Making the ramen. — *The ramen was fairly basic, and you have to make it yourself at a stand as seen in the bottom picture.*

The ramen itself, even with the dry add-in packets, was bland and incredibly underwhelming. I didn’t taste much flavor, even when I purposefully sought out the spam chunks while hoping it absorbed some of that roast beef flavor. I did ultimately feel full from the dish, so I guess that I got my $9 value out of it? I did not try the Masamume Churro, but I did see them and they looked MASSIVE.

Masamune churros being dual wielded. — *The masamune churros (as seen in this picture) was the one menu item I did not try, but they looked great.*

The drinks, however, are a completely different story. I came into Seventh Heaven intending to try both a Materia drink and an Enhancement Piece drink. The Materia drink comes in a glass orb (like Materia!) and the Enhancement Piece drink comes in a large Masamune tumbler. Both of them are FINAL FANTASY VII: Ever Crisis themed. I ordered the Cura Materia (a Kiwi & Passion Fruit Lemonade) to start. I was shocked at the SIZE of the drink you get for $20. This was a huge, round glass with light-up cubes and regular ice inside. There is far, far more liquid inside than I expected there to be. It is so much that I struggled to finish my drink, and I was not the only person in the restaurant who did so. And the cool part? You get to take the glass and light-up cubes home with you!

I felt like I got more than my money’s worth with the Cura Materia. The drink was delicious and had that pleasant kiwi and passion fruit flavor that was really balanced out with the right amount of sweetness. It was so pleasant that I absolutely would have gotten another if I hadn’t gotten so full off the mediocre ramen and the sheer size of the drink itself. If I had more space in my stomach, I would have absolutely ordered an Enhancement Piece drink and a Masamune churro.

Cura Materia drink. — The Materia drinks are all MASSIVE. I cannot stress how much, even with ice, liquid that beverage container held and I honestly struggled to finish it. Below are the tumblers, which I did not buy a drink of after I finished my Materia.

The only thing about the drink experience I was disappointed with was that they were going to let me take my ice-filled, used, glass home with me until I asked if I could please have a clean one instead. They happily did so, but it only came with a small black plastic bag. I asked if I could have the glass cup boxed up, but they told me that, unfortunately, that only happens if I was to order one from the online store to have shipped to my home. I ended up having to pad the glass with some packing material I brought with me for other purposes.

Once you finish your meal and drink, you’re then invited upstairs to experience their take on the Golden Saucer. There is a photo opportunity section in the corner that replicates the gondola with fireworks going off in the background from FINAL FANTASY VII Rebirth, there is a drop-catch game with replica swords, a crane catcher you have to pay to play, a dart board, and a small tech station you can play games on. I tried to start FINAL FANTASY VII on it, but the game unfortunately froze at the boot up screen. It is cute, and I am glad Boba Bear did something up in the additional space, but I was honestly underwhelmed by it beyond the photo opportunity that is absolutely amazing for cosplayers.

Is visiting the FINAL FANTASY VII’s Seventh Heaven Experience at Boba Bear pop-up restaurant in Koreatown, Los Angeles worth it? Absolutely yes. The décor is charming, the delicious drinks are a ridiculous value with the size offered and the glass/light-up cubes you get to keep, and the staff are simply the best. I would pass on the ramen and make other dinner plans in the area, but it is a perfect non-alcoholic stop-in for drinks and FINAL FANTASY VII merchandise if you want to avoid shipping fees on the SQUARE ENIX online store, you missed the Little Tokyo pop-up store earlier this year, and you’re not planning on visiting Akihabara anytime soon.

Welcome placemat. — *There are small touches everywhere, including from the moment you walk in (above) to on the staircase to the Golden Saucer (below).*

FINAL FANTASY VII’s Seventh Heaven Experience at Boba Bear is only around through January 25, 2026, but you still have plenty of time to fit it into your Los Angeles travel plans. I would recommend booking a table in advance through Open Table, as it got packed very quickly while I was there and there was a wait outside. Keep in mind this place has been open since September, and it really says something that the crowds have not yet let up. And feel free to show up to Seventh Heaven in cosplay: you’ll fit right in, I promise.